Thread by @MForstater

There is so much wrong with this article by Grace Lavery.

Jesse Singal gets at much of the detail

The biggest point for me though is captured in the framing by @ForeignPolicy

Their headline:

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1339699944953921537

Their tweet

The case of Bell v Tavistock is a judicial review about the welfare and rights of children under 18 with gender dysphoria in England

- is it right that they can consent to take puberty blockers?

(I.e. the Q of Gillick competence)

You cld argue that the court got it wrong; that it is in the interests of *these children* to be put on PBs because of psychological benefits (suicide risk argument) or because their future self will have a better life if transition is more visually convincing (outcomes argument)

You could argue this, and show compelling medical evidence (but the Tavi failed to do this). Then you would weigh those benefits w the risks & negative impacts on *those* children (to their adult sexual function, and ability to have children bone density & chance of regret etc)

But what you shouldn't do. What it is absolutely immoral to do is weigh the risks and negative impacts on *those children* against the interests of "trans people everywhere" or "the LGBT community"

As a society we must not sacrifice children's welfare - sterilising them, medicalising them for life and taking away adult sexual function - to satisfy the interests of a community of adults.

That would be child abuse

Choices like these hv been made before: people put the perceived interests and cohesion of the Catholic community, the gay community, the Scouting community, the Muslim community or whoever ahead of protecting children from harm (or they said the children 'consented')

Lavery's article is strewn with factual errors and misdirection (including about me and my case). But the editors @ForeignPolicy correctly summarised its core point in their headline and tweet.

What they failed to do was notice the utter immortality of that argument.

@RaviReports @BeijingPalmer you published an article whose fundamental argument - explicitly front and centre - is the interests of a community of adults should override consideration of harm to children.

This is how the demonising of the "transphobic TERFs" works to make justification of child abuse possible in plain sight

1) make is so dangerous to careers to talk about this that few will

2) if they do, chuck emotional theatrics at it to distract people from the point.

It works. It always works. We have reams and reams of lessons learnt about how this works.

The Lampard Report details how the NHS was manipulated by flamboyance, eccentricity and narcissicism for eg

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

One day they will write the report learning lesson on this scandal and it will include this article & headline.

People will shake their heads & say how did we miss it again?

It is wrong to justify harm to children to satisfy the desire of a community of adults.

(and Wales) . I should have said England and Wales upthread.